TV Guide
Magazine (March 24-30, 2001 issue) offered their list of cinematic
greatness - the greatest movie moments "that make you drop the
remote." "De Niro's menace. Hitchcock's malice. Meg's rapture.
Maybe a line of dialogue you love or an image you can't shake...The
scenes might run just a few seconds or stretch well beyond...Some are
from the classiest of classics, some are from popcorn movies."
The authors (Hilary De Vries, David Hiltbrand, Damian Holbrook, Michael
Scheinfeld and Ray Stackhouse) apologized in advance for neglecting
foreign-films.

Note: The films that are marked with a yellow star are
the
films that "The Greatest Films" site has selected as the "100
Greatest Films".

TV GUIDE's 50 GREATEST MOVIE MOMENTS(Ranked)

25. Network (1976)
- MAD AS HELLWith the most memorable rallying cry in Hollywood
history, demented anchorman Howard Beale (Peter Finch), the "mad
prophet of the airwaves," articulated the rage and frustration
of a society dehumanized by bureaucracy, the corporate world and, most
of all, television. The phrase? "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not
gonna take this anymore!"
Beale's declaration galvanized his viewers, and in a scene still capable
of sending chills down the spine, the dark streets of New York are filled
with the phrase shouted from the city's windows. Screenwriter Paddy
Chayefsky's defiant call has since become part of the American lexicon
of outrage and catharsis. Finch is electrifying, and his performance
won him an Oscar, bestowed posthumously: Finch died of a heart attack
two months before the ceremonies.

24. GoodFellas (1990)
- THE FUNNY GUYThe tracking shot through a literally mobbed restaurant
is a marvel, but Joe Pesci's terrifying "I amuse you?" speech
stands tallest in this picture. As Tommy DeVito, the gangster with a short
stature and a fuse to match, Pesci improvised the dialogue after telling
director Martin Scorsese about an encounter he'd experienced. As Tommy
entertains a group of wiseguys with profanity-laced stories, Henry (Ray
Liotta) innocuously calls him "funny." Suddenly, Tommy turns
scary: "Whaddaya mean I'm funny?...Funny how? I mean, funny like
a clown? I amuse you?" Countless actors and directors have tried
to copy this blend of humor and menace. But none can sit at the table
with Pesci and Scorsese.

23.Chinatown (1974) - SLAP JACKPrivate detective Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) finds
himself in over his head as he unravels an enormous land swindle in booming
pre-World War II Los Angeles. "You may think you know what you're
dealing with," John Huston's L.A. bigwig tells him. "But believe
me, you don't." The audience is in Gittes's boat as it navigates
Robert Towne's luminous, layered script, but the mystery in Roman Polanski's
neo-noir classic is impenetrable until Gittes literally slaps a scandalous
plot point out of a beautiful widow Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway): "She's
my daughter [slap]...my sister [slap]...She's my daughter
[slap]...my sister [slap]...my daughter [slap]. She's
my sister and my daughter!" Even Gittes, who has had a belly
full of human nature, is thunderstruck.

22.
Citizen Kane (1941) - ROSEBUDHas there ever been a more deceptively simple beginning
to a movie? From the very first frame, the film boasts some of the most
dazzling images ever put on screen, courtesy of a 25 year-old genius named
Orson Welles. The camera focuses on a snow-covered house, pulling back
to reveal a snow globe in a man's hand. The word Rosebud is whispered:
the globe drops to the floor and shatters. A distorted shot of a nurse
entering the room is reflected in the glass. She pulls a sheet over Kane's
head, the lights flicker out, and the mystery of Rosebud begins. So, too,
does a new, more sophisticated era in Hollywood filmmaking.

21 .2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - HAL'S HALF CRAZYStanley Kubrick's landmark film overflows with celestial
sights, from mysterious monoliths to a spaced-out star child. But the
defining moment in this cosmic classic is the dismantling of the calculating
computer, HAL 9000. As the machine's logic and memory circuits are disconnected
by Keir Dullea's astronaut, Dave, HAL's maddeningly calm voice (provided
by Douglas Rain), gradually regresses to childlike vulnerability, culminating
in its unforgettable rendition of Daisy. Decades before Microsoft
became a household name, Kubrick and author Arthur C. Clarke were well
aware of technology's mesmerizing capabilities.

20. North By Northwest (1959) - THE CROP DUSTERIn a movie crammed with impressive locales, from Mount
Rushmore to Manhattan's swank Plaza Hotel, an empty prairie forever holds
our imagination. When Cary Grant's hunted advertising executive finds
himself alone in the forlorn landscape, he learns director Alfred Hitchcock's
hard lesson: You're not safe anywhere. A quaint-looking biplane drones
into view, buzzing closer and closer, forcing a terrified Grant to take
cover in a cornfield. Then Hitch springs his mordant joke: The plane is,
of course, a crop duster, and thick clouds of poison begin to fall from
the sky. The scene lasts nearly 10 minutes - an unthinkable indulgence
by today's rapid-fire pacing - but not a second is wasted.

19. Jaws (1975) - THE USS INDIANAPOLISWith an eerie calm, grizzled sea captain and World
War II vet Quint recalls the 1945 sinking of the USS Indianapolis.
Given true bite by Robert Shaw's haunted reading, the tale holds fellow
shark hunters Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider spellbound. Eyes glazed
and distant, the flinty fisherman plunges us into the shark-infested South
Pacific bloodbath that claimed more than 700 sailors. [This is an exaggeration
of the truth!] For a few minutes, we forget the great white shark of the
title as we're transported back into history. Originally just a passing
reference in the script, Shaw rewrote the monologue that director Steven
Spielberg himself considers the best scene in the monster hit. As much
as we love that first midnight shark attack, who are we to disagree?

18. The Exorcist (1973)
- THE FULL SWIVELWho knew a musty old religious rite could be so terrifying?
The climactic exorcism from William Friedkin's exercise in supreme horror
was one of the single most awaited moments of 1973, the big battle between
good and evil finally arriving after more than 90 minutes of pea-soup
vomit and satanic verses. As the holy water is splashed and curses spewed,
Linda Blair's head-turning performance as a child with demons shifts into
overdrive. Fathers Merrin and Karras (Max von Sydow and Jason Miller)
faithfully try to cure what ails her, but conventional techniques fail.
When the younger priest finally takes matters into his own hands - yeah,
he beats the devil out of the girl - viewers were (and are) on the edge
of their seats. Or under them.

17. Battleship Potemkin (1925) - THE ODESSA
STEPS Considered by many to be one of the ten greatest films
of all time, Sergei Eisenstein's Russian chronicle of a 1905 revolutionary
uprising practically invented such now-standard editing techniques as
the montage and the symbolic juxtaposition of shots. But this silent masterpiece's
masterpiece is the massacre on the Odessa steps. Czarist troops relentlessly
march down a long staircase, shooting at innocent men, women and children,
culminating in the indelible image of a baby carriage bouncing down the
stairs. Today's audiences might know the scene more from the many homages
and parodies, in movies ranging from Brazil (1985) to The Untouchables (1987) to Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994), yet the real thing has lost none of its power.

16. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) - THE SAVIORGregory Peck won an Academy Award for his role as the
quietly heroic attorney Atticus Finch, but his isn't the only riveting
performance in director Robert Mulligan's exquisite adaptation of Harper
Lee's novel. Mary Badham is unforgettable as Scout, the little tomboy,
and her poignant introduction to the town bogeyman, Boo Radley, is pure
wonderment. Arriving near the end of the movie, the scene also introduced
audiences to the man who played Boo: Robert Duvall. The actor's lone scene
lasts no more than three minutes, but producer Alan Pakula once described
it as the "reason to make the film." After rescuing Scout and
her brother Jem from a vicious attack, Duvall's Boo appears like an angel
come to earth. Scout's wide-eyed welcome - "Hey, Boo" - was
the perfect greeting, a child's awakening to the power of good.

15. The Seven Year Itch
(1955) - THE SUBWAY BREEZE Marilyn Monroe and director Billy Wilder would reteam
to make a better movie (1959's Some Like It Hot),
but The Seven Year Itch earns its place in celluloid history (and
pop-culture iconography) with the now-ingrained image of Marilyn astride
a subway grate, her white, airy dress billowing high enough to beguile
audiences and enrage real-life husband Joe DiMaggio. "Isn't it delicious?"
she asks costar Tom Ewell, whose heat-soaked adulterous fantasies mirrored
the nation's own. The movie is more discreet than the film's famous Times
Square billboard ad: The skirt never flies much higher than the knees.
But the image of Marilyn as a modern-day Venus rising from a New York
City street remains, in a word, delicious.

14. It's a Wonderful Life (1946) - THE RENT PARTY
At the movies, we like our sentimentality the same
way we like our popcorn: in shamelessly large servings. And the final
scene in Frank Capra's Christmas classic - in which humble, hardworking
George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) discovers he is (as brother Harry says)
"the richest man in town" - is the biggest, butteriest tub of
all time. Can you imagine anyone but Stewart carrying off the emotional
extremes of this role? Of course not. That's what makes him America's
most beloved film actor. It's A Wonderful Life is the perfect vehicle
for Stewart's heart-on-a-sleeve style, particularly when the despairing
George finds out just how much his selflessness has meant to his family,
friends, and community. No one but Capra could pull off the topper: When
a tree ornament rings and little Zuzu tells her father that an angel just
got his wings, George seems happier for his divine guardian Clarence than
he is for himself. Go ahead and set aside a box of tissues for next Christmas.

13. On the Waterfront (1954) - THE SPEECHElia Kazan's classic about Terry Malloy, a broken-down
boxer battling a brutal and corrupt longshoreman's union, was filmed entirely
in Hoboken, New Jersey, which would have made it a homecoming for the
actor slated to star: Frank Sinatra. But Marlon Brando reversed his earlier
refusal of the role and ended up giving Hollywood one of its greatest
rides. In the scene that would become one of Brando's signature moments,
Terry and his crooked older brother, Charley (Rod Steiger), sit in the
back of a taxi, shadow and light flashing across their faces. Desperate
to keep Terry from testifying against the local labor bosses, Charley
tries bribery and threats. When Charley finally pulls a gun, Terry launches
into a speech of equal parts regret, accusation and heartrending sadness.
Charley, of course, contributed to his brother's long-ago downfall by
cooperating with a rigged boxing match. "I coulda had class. I coulda
been a contender," Terry says. "I coulda been somebody, instead
of a bum, which is what I am, let's face it." In lesser hands, the
speech would be little more than the bitter musings of a mug with "a
one-way ticket to Palookaville." Brando transforms it into poetry.